Walking with Jesus

In the hymn above, the singer pleads to the Lord that Jesus walk with him through the many phases and facets of his life.  There are good sentiments in it, but I suggest that perhaps it's a bit wrong-footed.  Instead of praying that Jesus walk with us, we should be praying that we walk with Jesus.

I remember that when the Savior walked the earth, He did not batter down doors offering to heal the embittered souls who blamed God for their misfortune, nor did He allow those who were spiritually healed to sit on their laurels and do nothing but praise.  Instead, He called on men to forsake all to follow Him; He had a blind man wash mud out of his eyes, a centurion beg a Jew for a favor, and he had Jairus to go to the social trouble of putting out the professional mourners.  He constantly required people to stretch, to move, to change.

Does this mean that by following the commandments we're buying our salvation with good works, that somehow we are creating or deserving the grace of God?  Of course not.  But just like a baby being born is, in its own way, working to twist and turn and assist in birth, so we have to turn our souls toward God to fully accept the grace the He would freely give to us, if we would but let Him.

The Easy Yoke

The devil, of course, cannot create anything.  He can't innovate, update, produce, design, or form.  The most he can do is take what God has already made and alter, dilute, adulterate, take out of context, subvert, and change it.

For example, the Lord has stated that discipleship to Him is as an easy yoke, and that His burden is light.  "Come ye, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."  So if God does not laden us with heavy burdens, who does?

I find that one of the tools the devil uses is to manipulate God's moderate reality into two seemingly opposite extremes, then claim a false dichotomy.  Either man should be heavy laden with a hedge around the law, or man should not be laden with a law at all.  Either man is saved entirely by grace with no human intervention, or we must listen to hellfire and brimstone at church every week.  Either we can cavort like pagans on Fat Tuesday or we must mortify the flesh days afterward.  Even better if we can be convinced to do both.

The reality God has created, however, does not lie comfortably in any such dichotomy, simply because the adversary has co-opted the discussion and is controlling both sides of the debate.  Neither the ascetic nor the hedonist are in the right; instead, the right is somewhere in the middle, and most likely off to the left a little bit, away from where the devil has convinced us the issue lies.

As a result, real discipleship doesn't conform to what the world understands.  It's a stumbling block to them, it's foolishness...yet it is also eternal reality, so we need to understand what discipleship is, what it means, and what happens because of it.  It's hard, because our individualistic society doesn't get why we have to devote ourselves to anyone other than ourselves; it's easy because once we do,  we know exactly where we can get hope and salvation.  It's hard because we have to kill the natural man; it's easy because the natural man isn't what we want to be anyway, and we see such a better alternative.  It's hard because everything that surrounds us calls us to think as the world thinks; it's easy because One calls us to think as He thinks.

So ultimately, it's an easy yoke, but it is a yoke.  It's a light burden, but it is a burden.  Only when we accept the idea that medicine really does taste yucky, but not too yucky, will we finally arrive at the middle ground the Lord created in the first place.

The Parable of the Talents

When Jesus taught the parable of the talents, he made an interesting point. Three servants are given sums of money by their Lord, who goes on a long journey. Two of them are faithful and work hard with the money that is given to them. One of these faithful servants had been given five talents; the other had been given two. When the Lord returned, he found that the servant who had been given five talents had, through trade, made five more, for a total return on investment of 100%. He responded:

21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into thejoy of thy lord.

Next, the Lord finds that the servant who had been given two talents had, through trade, made two more, for a total return on investment of 100%. He responded:

23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithfulservant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Both servants were awarded exactly the same thing.  In other words, these servants' rewards didn't depend on what they had been given, nor even on how much they had, but on how much they made in relation to what they had been given, their return on investment. 

Similarly, while it may seem unfair that some are dealt a poorer hand in this world, in the end that won't matter.  It won't matter in the eternities if you were rich or poor, but whether you were productive or not.  It won't matter if you were popular or ignored, but whether you were kind or ignoring. 

So let's create, let's build, let's inspire, and let's make the most out of what we've been given.  In the end, when this world and everything in it passes away, all we'll have is our ability to create.

God Loves Inmates

I’m a correctional officer.  I work with male offenders in a medium-security correctional institution and have met some very shady characters.  I’ve dealt with drug cartel leaders, murderers, terrorists (though only minor ones), drug dealers, child molesters, and white supremacists, among others.  I’ve stopped reading their files because seeing the particular crimes for which they are incarcerated can make the bile rise up and the rational mind float away.  And in the nearly three years I’ve done this work, I have come up with one troubling conclusion: God loves them just as much as He loves me.

            On the one hand, I see them up to their worst: gambling, running with gangs, assaulting one another, lying through their teeth, and generally taking everything they can con from a staff member.  On the other, I’ve seen them be honest, patient, gracious, loyal, and even grateful. 

            Inmates, regardless of what they have done, are still fundamentally human and have access to the grace that Jesus Christ offers.  They have done vile things that both separate them from God and that spread blood and horror on the Earth.  In the end, though, are we non-inmates fundamentally different?  We don’t molest children, but non-inmates can also be jealous, adulterous, and selfish.  We, too, find ourselves light-years from the perfections and glories of God.  The fact that we’re inches or even yards closer than some other person won’t matter much if we don’t get closer to Him. 

            Each of us needs God’s love, and each of us has been given the freedom to decide what we want: freedom and life eternal, or captivity and eternal death.  Each of us can embrace the work of God (“For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the exaltation and eternal life of man”) or we can wander in strange places and do the works of the devil, and reap the rewards thereof.  In other words, we can love all men, including inmates, or we can damn ourselves with our own hate. 

            True love, the love of God, strengthens and ennobles men.  True love may not be gentle if gentleness would tempt to predation, as it would in prison.  True love may even be “tough love” if that is what wisdom calls for.  True love is acting as the Savior did, serving wholeheartedly and teaching unabashedly, for only when we love like our Savior can we truly say we love at all. 

            So when I’m giving inmates their meals, or their laundry, or listening in consternation as they ask the same question for the hundredth time, I have to love them.  God, after all, gives us our food, our clothes, and listens as we ask the same question for the hundredth time.  So let’s love one another, for if God loves inmates, then we should too.

Not a fan

I must admit, I am taking the title of today's post from a book I'm seen.  You see, we shouldn't be fans of Jesus Christ.

A fan will do a lot of crazy things for the object of his/her fanaticism, whether it's midnight releases, standing in line for hours, attending conventions, or any such self-imposed rigors.  Fans, however, just do the outward motions.  They'll buy the toys, but leave them in mint condition; they'll dress up as their favorite characters, but not truly examine what those characters teach;  they'll speak loudly in favor of a social virtue but do little or nothing in their own lives to make that virtue more common.

In short, we shouldn't be fans of Jesus Christ--instead, we should be His disciples.

To the uninformed, the disciple may seem just as illogical as the fan.  The disciple, for example, will donate large amounts of money and time to an organization with far more money and manpower than the disciple has.  He/she will give up previous or potential habits, will, at great effort, deliberately avoid seemingly harmless, socially acceptable behavior, and will, quite literally, change his/her life in order to accommodate the teachings of a lot of dead people.

Today, it seems like it's easier to be a fan than a disciple: the fan just has to jump and shout a lot, while the disciple has the quiet job of changing human nature.

Both will be highly visible efforts.  No one camps out days before a book signing without understanding that people will see you; no one gives up gluttony or vulgar speech without coming to terms with its social ramifications.

Of the two, discipleship is the hardest, and it is discipleship which is asked of us.  We're not asked to go about an occasional, herculean effort; instead, we're asked to work day-in and day-out.

I love to see the temple

We've been taking monthly temple trips this summer; unfortunately, due to my own inattentiveness we weren't able to this month,  Although that particular day didn't end up a complete disaster, it was nevertheless frustrating because we had been looking forward to it.  Being in the temple is such a positive experience, you can't help but be disappointed when the chance is lost.

Being in the temple is like being enveloped in purpose.  Everything is in its' proper place and context, and in its' proper strength and priority.  In a world where our priorities are increasingly disjointed, where good is called evil and evil good, the temple is a balm and a refuge.

Where else can we be endowed with such power?  Where else can we be so cleansed?  Where else can we commune with God at such a personal level?

So let's take the temple less for granted, and make each trip a pilgrimage, whether that pilgrimage lasts hours or just minutes.  Let's make our homes more similar to the temple, and prepare ourselves to fully receive the blessings of the temple.

They the builders

We American Mormons have a patriotic kick about us, don't we?  Thing is, we see how good we have it.  Yes, other countries are good too (maybe not quite as good, but good).  Other countries are blessed by the Lord and have good people in them.  But this country, specifically, is where the Restoration took place.  Our freedoms, given to us by God, enabled the gospel to come forth (also from God).

So when I look at the freedoms, blessings, and just plain goodness of our country, I have to thank the Good Lord for it.  Sure, we have our faults, our telestial cultures, our eccentricities and our collective sins.  No country doesn't.  But there is goodness and truth in this country, and I love America for it.